GTP Video Game Cool Wall: Midnight Club Los Angeles

[Cowboy]

Midnight Club: Los Angeles, nominated by @Turbo



Release date: October 20th, 2008 (North America), October 24th 2008 (Europe, Australia)
Platform(s) released on: PlayStation 3, XBOX 360, PlayStation Portable (PSP)
Genre: Arcade racing
Developer: Rockstar Games

Spoiler: General Information

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is a racing video game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game features 43 cars and 4 motorcycles. The open world map of Los Angeles is size of all three cities from the previous installment combined. After several delays, Midnight Club: Los Angeles was released in October 2008.

Spoiler: Additional Images

 

[Silver Arrows]

Overrated. Had the best representation of LA in video games until GTA V, but aside from that, the handling felt wonky as hell, and the livery system wasn't really that great coming from Forza 2/3. There were some good cars, especially when it came to the South Central expansion and subsequent car packs, but the base car list kind of felt like a 'best of' list that didn't really have anything too earth shattering for an arcade racing game aside from maybe the 3000GT, GNX, Mustang Boss 302, and the Miura.

Though I will admit, I don't think I have EVER been as hyped for a game as I was at that first trailer. I think I was in school when it dropped, seeing the press release, and hearing Idealistic blast over the ****** computer room speakers.

 

[1241Penguin]

One of the most fun racing games I've ever owned. Shame about the occasional glitch or two; if it had a better UI and better physics, it would be so much better. Nevertheless, the racing, the career, and just the amount of fun you can have in this game was phenomenal. I hope that Rockstar can bring out another Midnight Club game with no bugs, better physics, updated graphics, and an even bigger city to roam around in.

 

[GTRacer22]

I was so hyped for this game before it came out. When it finally did, I had a blast. Only thing that killed it for me was the drop of split-screen multiplayer since I always had fun with it in the previous iterations.

 

[Techy]

Be amazing if this was re-released on the PS4 and Xbone (and PC, perhaps?). Bit like how Rockstar suddenly gonna re-release LA Noire. But more importantly, it's a shame there hasn't been another Midnight club game for this long.

 

[GTvsForza]

I have Remix on my Vita. Fun little game to pass the time.

 

[VXR]

The interior customisation was the only stand of out feature for me. C.

 

[Stephan]

For me this could've been the greatest Midnight Club ever made if they had retained the amount of cars and customization in the previous title. But nope instead we got half amount of the cars and customization for LA. Los Angeles had everything. Accurate map of LA, interior view and customization, day and night cycle, good physics engine (even though it uses the RAGE engine), etc.

As soon I saw the exotic car list, I was disappointed since coming off from DUB Edition. Like DUB Edition had exotic cars that were unlikely to be in the game at first but in the end they were included like Gemballa F355, McLaren F1 LM, Chrysler ME Four Twelve, Mercedes Benz CLK GTR, Cadillac Cien, etc. As for the SUVs, again I'm disappointed. From 13 SUVs from DUB Edition to 2 SUVs that are in the same brand for LA.

Now for the customization, while I don't mind fictional body parts for each car, I disliked how each car only has 3 parts available for each body part (2 for some cars).

So overall they really missed an good opportunity here. But I'll still give it an A since it also had a good livery editor for its time.

 

[Mike458]

It's an A... except for the fact that MC3 had so much better driving physics compared to this game. Still, with an amazing livery editor and fun open world, this is an easy A!

 

[ThrasherDBS]

I have a massive backlog of games that I still need to get to sometime, but if I just bought it, I'll pop it in just to try it out, and if it's engaging enough to pull my attention away from whatever game I was playing before, I'll play it through.

For those games that don't exactly pull me in, back into the backlog it goes.

As someone who didn't grow up with Midnight Club, and doesn't really care for the customization aspect of hydraulics and other "donk" upgrades that throw off the balance of the car hardcore, this was one that got put back into the backlog. The handling feels a little wonky, and the story mode didn't get me very fired up or engaged in the slightest.

I liked the neat touch that even if you have nowhere near the amount of cash to buy a certain car, you can still give it a test drive, but that's about it.

Games I'd give a C to are games that I don't really give up the game I'm currently focused on for, but a game I care to finish sometime in the future. This doesn't really apply here, so it's a D.

 

[SonicCharmeleon]

B is for bad physics!
The rest is pretty good, but maybe that's nostalgia.

 

[Peasantslayer]

A, probably in my top 5 racing games of all time, I can't believe it's been nearly 9 years since release.

It had a solid range of cars and bikes with a variety of customizations available, a great livery editor, a fun MP with a course creator, a great soundtrack and I really enjoyed the sense of speed and the pressure you felt when racing in pink slip races, the game would save before the races so if you tried to quit you would still lose your car.

 

[JohnBM01]

If Midnight Club games weren't so difficult, I would enjoy them more. Or maybe I am just not as adept at wild arcade racing games. So I would probably say this game is still rather fun despite the difficulty.

 

[Robin]

I played this quite a lot and yeah the physics and insane difficulty kind of ruined an otherwise great game. You couldn't mess up in a race at all because it would all be over, if it was a series race it would be even worse. The timed challenges also where also ridiculously tight.

I don't know what possessed Rockstar to make it like this with superhuman AI driving and a huge amount of rubberbanding. The rest of the game was great, excellent graphics for the time, lots of realistic traffic and pedestrians, lots of challenges and customisation etc. I would say B.

 

[Gerarghini]

Absolutely loved this game but I can't get over how the ending of this game turned out to be... it was extremely jarring to have nothing for the conclusion.

The physics were okay I guess. Definitely not exactly good. On the flip side though, the attention to detail for LA and the endless Best Buy's and Pizza Huts, and things like how fixing your car after a total would give you primer painted parts.

 

[VYPA-SQUAD_Ace]

I loved this game! My friends and I still talk about it to this day! Offline was a grind, but online is where it was at. Just the sheer amount of fun you were able to have, if you weren't raging at someone hitting your car during a car show or wrecking you for no good reason in a race.

I had my Corvette Z06 tuned to perfection(my opinion) and I had all my friends asking what did I do to make it do what it did. It gripped, it was easy to control and it was fast. I also loved that when you upgraded the parts, changing the brand name of the part actually mattered.